Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo, released the following message to all students, faculty, and staff on November 11, 2015.
On Remembrance Day, we express our solemn gratitude for those who have given their lives for Canada and for peace. We also celebrate the inheritance of freedom and democracy they have entrusted to us.
On October 19, Canadians stewarded that inheritance from coast to coast to coast.
On some levels it was an ordinary day. Canadians from all walks of life shuffled into their labs and classrooms or hustled their children off to school or daycare. They punched in at factories or fielded calls from clients or filed new research proposals with their supervisors. Many of them fought rush hour traffic, and most of them probably went to bed at night feeling that constant, modern sense that not everything got done.
But at some point, about fifteen million of us did something remarkable. We made our way to polling stations in schools, church basements, and campuses all across the country and cast our ballot for the political representative of our choice.
October 19 was no ordinary day — it was a remarkable day. We participated in a democratic process denied so often around the world to so many.
Remembrance Day asks us to consider where that liberty comes from and what it takes to sustain it.
Over the course of Canada’s history more than one hundred thousand Canadians — more than the current population of Waterloo — have sacrificed their lives for freedom, both ours and others’. Their memory is honoured in monuments from Calais to Kapyong to Kandahar, and in thousands of communities across Canada.
Those monuments, like the mental and physical scars borne by all who have served in Canada’s name, both haunt and inspire us. More than anything, they call us to build a world ever more peaceful, fair, and equitable.
In our own way, that’s what we do at the University of Waterloo. We uncover new knowledge to make the world smarter, new technologies to make it safer and more prosperous, and new leaders to make it more humane, inclusive and just.
By fulfilling this vocation, we honour those who gave their lives to keep Canada glorious and free.
This morning at eleven o’clock, the nation’s flag will be pulled low and we citizens will fall silent, and we will remember them.
Lest We Forget.